The Dow Jones gained 1.00%, the Nasdaq index rose 1.79% and the broader S&P 500 index gained 1.42%.
“As fear recedes, people are more drawn to stocks,” summed up Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.
The VIX index, which measures market volatility, fell on Wednesday to its lowest level since March 9, the day before the takeover of regional bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) by US regulators.
The stabilization of bond yields has also helped put equities back on track, added Art Hogan.
The yield on 10-year US government bonds ended unchanged at 3.56%, which had not happened for three weeks.
For Peter Cardillo, of Spartan Capital, the fact that the S&P 500 index managed to stay above 4,000 points at the close is an encouraging sign because “it’s a psychological threshold”.
“The banking crisis is taking a bit of a back seat and investors are starting to buy what has been leaked in recent weeks,” said Art Hogan.
Among the stocks that benefited from this bargain hunt, the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian (+9.88%), the e-commerce platform Shopify (+5.39%) and the internet installment specialist Affirm (+ 10.88%).
The enthusiasm has even spread to regional banks, real pariahs of the place a few days ago.
A little quickly presented as the new weak link in the American banking sector, First Republic was sought after (+5.63%), as well as the Texan Comerica (+4.56%) or the Californian PacWest (+5.06% ).
Ironically, shares of SVB – whose trading was allowed to resume over-the-counter on Tuesday (without continuous listing) – were very popular, jumping 142.50%.
Even with a price more than doubled, however, they are only worth 97 cents, less than 1% of their price when they were suspended from trading on March 10.
If it went through the banking crisis without a hitch, the technology sector also gained altitude on Wednesday, in the wake of comments from the semiconductor manufacturer Micron (+ 7.19%).
The group from Boise (Idaho) said it was cautiously optimistic about a rebalancing between supply and demand in the coming months, after a sharp deceleration in orders since the end of 2022.
These forecasts carried several of its competitors, whether Intel (+7.61%) or Qualcomm (+3.09%).
Beyond that, Amazon (+3.10%), Meta (+2.33%) and the graphics card specialist Nvidia (+2.17%) paraded.
Elsewhere on the stock exchange, sports equipment manufacturer Lululemon sprinted (+12.72%), pushed in the back by better than expected quarterly results and by forecasts also above analysts’ expectations for the whole of its staggered financial year (from February to January).